Tag: Punk Rock Holiday

N.B.: I’d intended for this to be a happy article about how and why I enjoy live music so much, but it’s turned out a bit on the dark side. Oops. Trigger warning: Depression, suicide, bereavement.

I’ve been going to a lot of gigs lately. In the last month alone, I figured out I’ve travelled over 3,500 miles just to see bands. As I’ve started booking in festivals later in the year, more people are asking me why I’m doing it.

Typically it is a question I get from the ‘normal’ people I work with or my long-suffering family, however lately it’s a question I’ve received from people in the scene, usually accompanied by an incredulous look because I’ve just turned up in yet another city.

I’ve got an answer for you, but it might not be the one you’re expecting.

Why do I go to so many gigs? I go because I know I’m going to die. I’ve become hyper aware of my own mortality.

I can feel the time slipping through my fingers, and enjoying the music I love is my way of remedying and recognising that. Every show I go to, whether that’s a sweaty Propagandhi pit, a crusty post-hardcore melee or a gentle acoustic folk gig, I will have a massive grin plastered to my face. I’m enjoying the noise, the adventure and spending time in the punk community, because I feel like it could end at any second.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been berated with the following: “You’re going to burn out;” “You should drink less;” “You need to concentrate more on work;” “You shouldn’t waste your money on that;” “You need to calm down.”

They’re all right, of course, I probably ‘should’ do all of those things. I’m fucking tired. I’ve got tinnitus. I get stressed trying to keep track of all the gig-dates on my mental calendar. I struggle to motivate myself to do my day job because it’s so different to my ‘other life’. I’ve given myself alcohol poisoning more times than I can count. I’m running solely on caffeine and enthusiasm. Getting out of bed to be at the airport at 5am when I’ve still got the flu from last weekend’s festival is a hellish struggle.

It is worth it, because I am happy. Right now, I am happier than I have ever been. And I have been for a long time now. I haven’t felt the tug of depression and the cold sweat of anxiety has washed straight off me. I’ll say it again: I am really fucking happy. Continue reading “How Punk Rock Solved My Problem With Mortality”

The only thing better than an all-day punk show is multiple days of punk shows. Festivals are undoubtedly the most important part of my year. You get to see your favourite bands, discover new ones and if it’s a bigger event there’s a good chance that your friends will travel from far and wide to party together. I love how punks from around the UK are drawn to gigs like Manchester Punk Festival or Wonkfest like a big punk rock Mecca; there’s nothing better than weekends spent watching bands, catching up and crashing on mates’ floors.

Admittedly, I’ve only been to a handful of major festivals this year. This Top 5 is intended to be a personal and somewhat self-indulgent recollection of my favourite bigger events of 2017. Hopefully reading it will bring back some positive memories for you too.

#5: Wotsit Called Fest

When: September 29th – 30th

Where: The Palace, Hastings

Festival Highlight: Matilda’s Scoundrels’ riotous set

2017 saw the second Wotsit Called Festival – a little DIY fest run by a collective in Hastings. It was a wonderful weekend away by the seaside, without a dull moment musically.

Friday was the huge party, serving as Matilda’s Scoundrels‘ release show for As The Tide Turns. They played an absolutley storming set full of dancing, crowd-surfing, human pyramids and all that malarkey. Following them were Nosebleed who caused their usual well-dressed ruckus, including a stage-invasion, getting out into the crowd and generally causing chaos. Getting to witness two of the UK’s best live acts all in one place in such an intimate setting was really rewarding.

The diversity of the line-up was what bumped Wotsit Called into the Top 5 for me. I greatly enjoyed starting the day with some skiffle covers, followed by melodic gruff from The Dead Anyways and then gradually descending into the entropy of Riggots via Pizzatramp, Natterers and The Crash Mats, among many others. This is still a relatively small punk gathering, but definitely one to watch for next year.

At the start of Wonkfest I was joking with a friend that it might be funny to find the drunkest person at the festival at attempt to interview them. Later in the evening, I reached the unfortunate conclusion that the drunkest person at the festival may actually be me. As such, my memory of the headline bands is a tad hazy (Wonk Unit played, right?) and on the way home I fell backwards over my own bicycle and got trapped in a hedge for ten minutes. I’m not proud, but I did greatly enjoy waking up bruised, broken and covered in gold glitter. In hindsight, perhaps drinking vodka on the train at 9.30am wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.

Although it’s the drunken debauchery that will stick in my memory, the festival itself was as fantastic as it is every year. The gig is split between two stages, running 20 minute sets back-to-back with few breaks. It’s a format that works well, although you do have to skip a band if you want to eat, smoke or drunkenly make out with someone. Matilda’s Scoundrels opened the show with an aggro-folk riot, Spoilers were the closest things to Snuff that you’re going to find apart, perhaps, from Simon Wells playing a sweet acoustic set downstairs. Nova Twins were my highlight for the second year running; they’ve got an unprecedented amount of swagger. Aerial Salad and The Kimberly Steaks played exciting and energetic sets, between them managing to be so close to early Greenday that I felt justified in jeering at all the people paying to watch Greenday at Hyde Park the same night. Finally, the pit for Pizzatramp was one of the most wonderful, enjoyably violent experiences I’ve had all year. We got a huge rowboat, people crowd-surfing on inflatable pizza slices and general elbow-dodging chaos. What an incredible rollercoaster of punk fun. Continue reading “Top 5 Punk Festivals of 2017”

On Friday morning I wake to discover a small lake forming at the front of the tent. Luckily the dam I built with sullied clothes has kept it at bay and, in fact, it’s evaporated a little in the heat. We venture out of the campsite to a makeshift bar on the roadside, starting the day with battery-acid €1 coffee and Slovenian schnapps called Unicorn Tears. It beats an alarm clock.

Friday is the big one. Although the rest of the week has been fun, there’s not a single band on today’s line-up that I’m willing to miss. The Beach Stage is a Lockjaw Records extravaganza of heavy, technical chaos, and the evening bill is knicker-moisteningly intense: 88 Fingers Louie, Snuff and Propagandhi. Propa-fucking-gandhi! Ask anyone earlier in the week who they’re looking forward to seeing: the answer is always Propagandhi. I’m worried I may die from excitement. Or alcohol poisoning.

Sat at the roadside bar we can hear ominous ripplings of thunder from over the hills, and the skies open once again. I grab another tongue-melting coffee and wait for the storm to pass, knowing that I’m going to need to bail the tent out again.

Amusingly, when the rain lets up, I notice a few people roaming around the campsite, foraging for rubbish. Garbage is a valuable commodity at PRH. You pay €10 on entry that’s returned when you hand in a full trash bag: a system so efficient that it’s a challenge to find enough litter to reclaim your deposit. The €1 cup-deposit scheme also means there’s not a single cup to be found on the ground (the complete opposite of many English festivals). On the last day we wind up optimistically searching bins for discarded cups, just to reclaim out deposits – that’s how clean it is!

I get down to the Beach Stage early and listen to Corbillard sound checking while dipping my toes in the glacial water. The beach is quiet, with a light mist rising from the river. The water’s no longer clear because the storm has shaken up the silt overnight. As the singer ‘one-two-one-two’s into the mic it booms madly around the mountains, making the strangest echo. Continue reading “Punk Rock Holiday 1.7 Review Part 4: Friday – The Big One!”

On Thursday I’m gutted to miss Actionmen opening the Beach Stage – unavoidable as I’m slammed by a rough bout of food poisoning that has me throwing up for 8 hours. I get a much needed wake-up call from Why Everyone Left, a heavy pop-punk band from Italy. Their set is peppered with A Day To Remember-style beat downs, that I (guiltily) really enjoy.

Slovenian locals Real Life Version do a reasonable impression of Hot Water Music with a tight-as-fuck rhythm section. Barrier Reef/The Great (a collective featuring members of Astpai and Antimaniax) are a fun listen, but I enjoy them even more for being able to collapse on the sand while they play. The delight of the Beach Stage is that you can hear the bands well, echoing around the valley, even if you’re too trashed to stand.

BONO! are by far the highlight of the Beach Stage on Thursday. Having ventured all the way from Norwich, they throw down super-fast aggressive punk to a great turn out, demonstrating that there’s still a demand for 90s Sick Of It All-type hardcore. They play a song specifically about Punk Rock Holiday and PRH legend Richie Parker gets hoisted on stage in his wheelchair to play some punk-as-fuck tambourine on their last few tracks. Singer, Dan Hinds, jumps down to rip a hole in the crowd while they tear through a fierce cover of Fuck The Border by Propagandhi, in one of most exciting moments of the day. Continue reading “Punk Rock Holiday 1.7 Review Part Three: Thursday”

Today is the first serious band day for me. After a good long sleep and a quick trip to the shop for supplies, I’m feeling fresh and ready to go.

The primary daytime activity at Punk Rock Holiday is recovering on the beach, wearing your hangover like a badge of pride. The sand is populated with inflatables: boats, rubber ducks, unicorns – you name it. Festival-regulars load their vessels with beer and float downstream from the campsite to the Beach Stage, dodging the checkpoints where they confiscate cans on the way into the arena. Genius.

I enjoy watching Acid Snot rinse through some technical pop punk (yes, I did just say that) in the dappled shade of the Beach Stage. This foursome from Barcelona bring the party-vibe: they pull off an amazing medley of Superman,Take On Me, One Love and Rhythm of the Night with some seriously sweet, fast-as-fuck saxophone. Resident wheelchair hero, Richie Parker, joins them on stage to juggle water balloons – a big favourite with the crowd. It’s novel watching a heavier band playing in the sunshine, although it’s just as sweaty as a tiny basement show. Continue reading “Punk Rock Holiday 1.7 Review Part Two: Wednesday”

You must have heard the rumours: “Punk Rock Holiday is the best punk festival there is.”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard that statement this week: from hungover punks recovering with a cocktail on the beach, to drunk friends revelling in how good the headline band is. It’s an onstage mantra that every band has repeated.

Everything you’ve heard is true. Breath-taking scenery, sunshine and beaches. Unrelenting punk rock, high-octane hardcore and stagediving chaos. Punk Rock Holiday offers everything you could possibly want from a festival, and does it with a relaxed nonchalance that makes it feel safer and better organised than any outdoor festival I’ve previously attended. Punk Rock Holiday is the best punk festival there is*.

Festival season is upon us! Time to drink warm cans in a field full of grubby strangers and enjoy a well-deserved break from the real world.

There are so many high-calibre punk shows this month it’s going to be hard to keep up.

For me, August is going to be ruled by a week in Slovenia for Punk Rock Holiday. I’ve wanted to attend for years, but this is the first time I’ve managed to secure tickets. Never before have I had the opportunity to combine bands, beers and beaches – I can barely contain my excitement.

Headliners this year include Propa-fucking-gandhi, Good Riddance and The Offspring, plus heavyweights like Snuff,Face to Face and Teenage Bottlerocket. Of the less-obvious bands on the Beach Stage, I strongly recommend checking out Not On Tour, BONO! and Sombulance. I’m concerned that I may not survive 5 straight days of beer and heatstroke but I’m gonna give it a bloody good try.

I also recommend visiting Boomtown Fair for their unparalleled array of partying options. As usual Last Gang in Town’s selections for the Devil Kicks Dancehall stage are sterling: King Prawn, The Filaments, Wonk Unit, Inner Terrestrials, Pizzatramp, The JB Conspiracy to name a handful… Check out the full line-up, there isn’t a bad apple on the whole list.

The weekend before is Rebellion up in Blackpool: a social experiment to determine whether punks can survive constant exposure to loud noises, solely with the help of lager, chips and fry ups. The annual punk extravaganza always pulls in big names from across the scene, including many of the same bands as Punk Rock Holiday, plus hundreds of others like Bad Religion, Sham 69, Slaves and many of the smaller UK punk regulars.

I should also be making my annual pilgrimage to Devon for Beautiful Days – a chilled-out grassroots festival run by Levellers. It sells out every year based only on word of mouth: there’s no advertising, no sponsorship and no bullshit whatsoever. This year’s line-up includes Stiff Little Fingers, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, Hepcat, Matilda’s Scoundrels, Ferocious Dog, Therapy? and Songhoy Blues. If you’re heading down there, make sure you have a cold pint down The Bimble Inn for me!